Evening Thoughts
by SeptimusMagistos
Summary: This is actually a story on Johnny Maxwell Trilogy, but I'm sticking it into the Diskworld section. JohnnyxKirsty.
1. Johnny

I do not own Johnny Maxwell or anything else in the Johnny Maxwell Trilogy.

Somewhere on this site is another fan of Johnny Maxwell. I just know it. If you are him or her, please post a review.

Johnny sighed. It had been another long day. Not the kind of long day where he sat around and waited for it to end, and that's why it was long. No, it had been the kind of long day where he had to go and mediate a conflict between two robot races on a distant planet. And he couldn't even tell them apart. Of course, in a strange way, that had actually helped.

Johnny turned a knob on his radio. It was a present from his grandfather. For some reason listening to it seemed to calm him down after episodes like that. Not that he minded the actual mediation, but the part where they had to escape the laser fire of destructobots kind of scared him.

The radio crackled for a while and finally came to life, playing a gooey love song. Johnny sat back and just listened, not really paying attention. After a while, he found his thoughts drifting to Kirsty.

Johnny sat up suddenly. Why would a love song make him think of Kirsty? He turned the radio off, threw open a window and let the cold air hit him. This bore some thinking about. He didn't love Kirsty. Did he? No, she was just his friend.

He thought about Kirsty some more. He remembered the first time he saw her. Standing in J&J Software, making Mr. Patel overturn a long-standing no-returns policy by mentioning federal acts and pronouncing italics. Not to mention brackets. Her ability to do that was still one of Johnny's favorite things about her.

Wait a minute. He had favorite things about Kirsty? Since when? But when he thought about it, there were certainly things he admired about her. Like how Kirsty instantly took control of any situation. No matter how weird things got, she always stayed on top of them-in her own way. Of course, sometimes that way wasn't the right way. Even someone as brilliant as Kirsty could do something stupid. Sometimes she got a bit too violent or too logical for her own good. Usually that's when Johnny's personality balanced her out. They actually made a pretty good team.

Another interesting thing about Kirsty was that she could actually follow him through whatever passages his mind wrought in the fabric of reality. His other friends would sometimes join him, but never fully. They wouldn't exactly understand what's going on, or they'd be scared, or they'd forget it afterward. But Kirsty always followed him, determinedly. Sometimes even eagerly. She seemed to think all the weird stuff was exciting, though to Johnny it always seemed like a nuisance. And she remembered it better than he did. Sometimes she took notes. He knew for a fact she had a timeline of all the occurrences hidden in her desk drawer.

Overall, if Johnny had to choose his best friend, or his closest one, he would probably select Kirsty. Though being around her could sometimes feel like handling a bomb, she was always reliable, and when he was around her they actually did things, not just hung around. Still, he didn't love her. Did he?

Johnny thought even harder, letting the night air wash over him. Perhaps if he approached it from a different perspective...for instance, did he think Kirsty was pretty? Well...kind of. Probably not in the traditional way. She was a bit too scary for that. Kirsty didn't go in for long eyelashes and lipstick. But she had a sort of a fit look that Johnny couldn't help but admire.

Johnny closed the window and sat back down, sighing. He was even more confused than usual. At least he could _talk_ to aliens and ghosts. Sorting out his own feelings was much harder.

But even if he did like Kirsty that way, what could he possibly do about it? He tried to imagine asking Kirsty on a date. His brain refused to process it. Some things could not be thought about. Should not be thought about.

Johnny sighed again and went downstairs to watch TV and drive these strange thoughts out of his mind. They could wait for a while.


	2. Kirsty

Once again, do not own anything in the Johnny Maxwell Trilogy

Meanwhile, at her house, Kirsty was having some difficult thoughts of her own. On a whim, she decided to turn on the radio and got the same song Johnny did. Her thoughts had drifted to him. Now she was dealing with that.

She didn't love Johnny. No way. All that 'romance' stuff was for weak-willed women who still lived as if it was eighteenth century. She was an independent, modern girl who didn't need any of that. Johnny was just a friend. That's it. Nothing else.

So why did she keep having these weird episodes when she thought otherwise? During the previous few weeks she caught herself staring at him several times. And just that day as they faced each other she had a brief fantasy of herself leaning forward to kiss him. That threw her aim off a bit, but she made up for it by taking her confusion out on the nearest killbot by beating it with its own power saw arm. But why had it happened in the first place? She wasn't in love with Johnny! And she wasn't in denial either. Denial was for people with I.Q. of under 140.

It was true that she liked being around him. But a lot of that was just for the sake of everything that happened around him. Whenever Johnny was around, mysteries, wonders and magic crawled out of the woodwork. That was it, of course. She loved extraordinary things, and the world around her was so mundane. She knew that without Johnny she could spend the rest of her life in a futile search for something exciting. So that was a good reason to be around him. Besides, truth be told he was really the only one who would be friends with her. For some reason everyone else seemed to stay away from her, no matter how much time she spent explaining to them just exactly what was wrong with them. Johnny didn't seem to mind that, though. He was patient.

She also admired his mind, the way one might admire a piece of abstract art. It was truly a work of wonder, the way he seemed to just accept everything. The downside was that this made him a bit apathetic. He didn't seem to get excited about even the most amazing things. He never wanted to do anything. He was just sort of took up space. But she knew that underneath all that uncertainty and quiet there was something extraordinary. It didn't come up much, but in cases of emergency, when even she lost all hope, when she was overcome with uncertainty, and even fear, something happened to him. For one thing he acquired strange superpowers. But he also turned into someone supremely confident, with a strange commanding presence, almost scary and at the same time knowing the solution to the problem at hand.

But most of the time he was a person who needed her help. Without her he would be totally lost. When presented with a problem he did not solve it, he just floundered. She liked helping him, _actually_. It made her feel good. She felt that someone like him needed someone like her. They made a pretty good team.

And...well...he _was_ kind of cute, okay? He was sort of thin and reedy, but his face just had a nice quality she appreciated. But so what? She could control her baser instincts. It didn't mean anything. And he also had a nice personality.

But anyway, the point is, she absolutely, positively, was not in love with him!

Besides, she didn't really know how to act when in love. Would she just come up to Johnny and tell him 'you're my boyfriend now'? That would work, certainly, but still...Or would she have to resort to _flirting_? She had no idea how to flirt.

She lay back, turned off the radio, and grabbed a book, determined to push those thoughts out of her head. They were confusing, and better dealt with on another day.


End file.
